Shuttle XPC SZ170R8 V2: Small but Powerful

Compact, efficient and incredibly powerful if you spring for the right parts, the Shuttle XPS SZ170R8 V2 has a lot going for it. The small form factor of the motherboard does not take away from its power. Even better is its capability as a portable machine.

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Student Council Presidents are usually those student leaders who are well-organized and have natural leadership skills. There are a lot of anime characters who have the traits to become an excellent Student Council President, so Charapedia asked which characters would make the best one. 10,000 people (46.2% male, 53.7% female) all voted for a total of...

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AMD may have been struggling to come up with a product that could hold its own against the might of Intel's Sandy Bridge since this year started, but some analysts are claiming that the company's Llano platform could be exactly what it needs to regain some market share;

Engineers at IBM Research have reportedly discovered a way to store data in phase change memory technology for longer periods, a discovery which could potentially pave the way for lower cost solid state chips that are faster and more reliable than today's multi-level cell flash memory chips;

Facebook has announced two new features for its Comments Box plugin, which lets third party websites embed Facebook comments: Chronological Sort, and Boost Comment;

Apple has reportedly set up an FAQ to help veteran Final Cut Pro users make the transistion to Final Cut Pro X, and has even started issuing refunds to dissatisfied customers;

Shanda Games International and Eyedentity Games have announced the availability of the popular DragonNest MMORPG for the South East Asia region, while confirming that the free-to-play game's localization will be carried out in Singapore, and

Bungie has finally lifted the lid on Bungie Aerospace, which is a project that is designed to support small independent developers by helping them to launch mobile and social games.

Hardware news

Patriot Wildfire 120GB Solid State Drive RAID Report Description: Currently sitting at the top of the storage subsystem throne is the SandForce SF-2281 controller when paired with Toshiba Toggle flash. Patriot, the innovative, awesome, totally groovy company that they are, decided to send us two of their Wildfire solid state drives using this magical combination that allow us to achieve blissful RAID 0 speeds on an inexpensive native SATA III motherboard. So how blissful you ask? How does over 1000MB/s sound?

Larkooler KU3-241 WaterCooling Kit Review @ XtremeComputing Description: Today I will be reviewing the Larkooler KU3-241 ‘Extreme Performance G1/4" Liquid Cooling Kit’. I have never heard of GBU or Larkooler before, so we are in unchartered waters with this new water cooling kit. I have dabbled with water-cooling before, primarily working with Swiftech components, so I know what to expect from the big names – let’s see how this new contender fares.

What Makes the Thunderbolt Cable Lightning Fast Description: It’s the chips. And we’re not talking about the Lay’s variety. We received good word from one of our friends, Ars Technica’s own Chris Foresman, that the $50 Thunderbolt cable may be an active cable. He postulated that the cable may actually have chips containing firmware in it, making it more expensive to produce than your garden-variety HDMI cable — thus justifying the hefty price tag.

Icy Dock MB982SPR-2S Review @ Vortez Description: Today we'll be looking at their dual 2.5" to 3.5" SATA drive convertor the snappily titled MB982SPR-2S. A tiny enclosure that not only accommodates dual 2.5" SDD/HDD but also packs an integrated hardware raid controller that allows striping, mirroring and combined storage. Further to that the enclosure offers full compatibility with both PC and MAC systems making it a very flexible prospect indeed.

Kingston Triple-Channel KHX2000C9AD3W1K3/6GX Review @ ocaholic Description: The Kingston H2O series belong to the most powerful modules which the memory giant actually has in its portfolio. As soon as you take a closer look at the specifications you'll see that they are very serious. According to Kingston these DIMMs need only 1.5 Volt to operate at 2133 MHz with 9-11-9-27 timings.

ASUS F1A75-M Pro AMD APU Motherboard Review @ Legit Reviews Description: Where the ASUS F1A75-M Pro truly excelled today was the performance of the integrated graphics. Every one of our graphics tests that we compared the Intel HD Graphics 3000 to the AMD A8-3850 with AMD Radeon HD 6550D there was a clear and decisive winner. For our recap of the graphics performance let's start with Total War: Shogun 2 in DirectX 9 mode. The ASUS F1A75-M Pro was able to pull out an average that was 143.4% faster than the Intel system at a resolution of 1280×1024…

AMD Expected to Regain Market Share Description: Analysts today said that AMD got slaughtered by Intel in the first quarter of the year, but Forbes believes that Llano will help the company to regain market share.

IBM Announces Phase Change Memory BreakthroughDescription: Engineers at IBM Research in Zurich, Switzerland claim they've come up with a breakthrough in phase change memory (PCM) technology that, for the first time, would allow it to store data for longer periods, potentially paving the way for lower cost solid state chips that are faster and more reliable than today's multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory chips. The trick is in figuring out a solution to a problem called "drift."

Consumer Electronics and Software News

8-inch PMP with glasses-free 3D priced at US$179Description: Despite the facts that there isn't much appropriate 3D content, and the viewing angles required for the 3D effect are limited (as was described in our Nintendo 3DS review) the list of glasses-free 3D gadgets increases. The HTC EVO 3D smartphone was the latest addition, but certainly won't be the last. Perhaps not many readers have heard of the Chinese manufacturer Gadmei, although there is at least one reason to become acquainted with it. The company has released its P83 portable media player (PMP), which is capable of displaying 3D videos and images that are viewable without glasses, and is certainly one of the most inexpensive devices of its kind offered so far.

BenQ's DV-S11 projector camcorder is now shipping for $229Description: BenQ's DV-S11 is now shipping in the US for $229. The DV S11 is a full-HD (1080P) camcorder with a pico-projector. It's got a 5mp camera and a large (3.5" 230K pixels) LCD. It stores images to an SD card, and includes an HDMI out port. We don't have any technical information about the projector itself, though.

Apple Issues FAQ, Refunds for Final Cut Pro X Users Description: There has been a ton of complaints regarding Final Cut Pro X. Long time users of the editing software were not happy with the update to the software. Apple had dubbed the changes 'jaw dropping' and, while jaws were dropping, it wasn't because users were happy with the changes. Costing $299 via the Mac App Store, the update includes some major changes and is basically a complete rewrite. However, Apple also ditched some features available with previous versions, raising questions about whether or not it was possible to open and edit projects produced with older versions of the software.

Samsung announces 32GB microSD card capable of 12MBps write speedsDescription: Go shopping online for a microSDHC card and you'll find that while manufacturers don't hide the speed specs, they're not exactly crowing about 'em either. Make no mistake, though: Samsung is mighty proud of its new 32GB number, which boasts a class 10 speed rating and read / write rates of 24MBps and 12MBps — ideal numbers for those of you who plan on making good use of your phone's 1080p camera. If you're a storage buff, you know that class 10 is the highest speed category for SD cards at the moment, and that it sits above classes 4 and 6 — the tiers covering many other microSDHCs on the market. No word just yet on pricing, but we think it's safe to say you'll be dishing out a premium.

SearchLion makes use of the empty space on the side of your displayDescription: If you’ve got a large monitor and wish you could make use of it more efficiently when you’re browsing search results you now can; thanks to the folks at SearchLion. The company has officially launched SearchLion: a search engine that’s touted as the world’s first search browser. Confused yet? Don’t be.

Gaming news

Dragon Nest SEA announced, localizing in SingaporeDescription: Shanda Games International (SDGi), together with Eyedentity Games unveiled one of the top massive online action role playing games in Singapore. Titled Dragon Nest SEA, the companies held an official signing ceremony at Hard Rock Hotel, Resort World Sentosa with Thomas Lim, director of interactive media, games and publishing, Media Development Authority (MDA) as the witness.

Limbo coming to Steam and PSN, Playdead handling the ports Description: Yesterday we reported that Limbo may be PSN-bound, if a Korean Game Ratings Board listing sought by Sony Computer Entertainment Korea is any indication. We reached out to developer Playdead for comment and CEO and co-founder Dino Patti got back to us today confirming the news.

Bungie's Aerospace RevealedDescription: Bungie has finally lifted the lid on Bungie Aerospace, a project it has been keeping under wraps for some time. No new game here; Aerospace is a service designed to support small independent developers. The idea is to help the teams launch mobile and social games.